SOURCE – First of all congrats on the early response to the new album Children of the Great Extinction. It’s getting great word of mouth. Did you had a specific idea in mind of what you wanted for this album before entering the studio and how close did you come to that original vision?
Seth Andrew Hecox (Rhythm guitar, keyboards, clean vocals) – Thanks! It’s affirming and gratifying to see the response we’ve gotten so far. Our old fans have loved the three singles we’ve released, and other folks are just discovering BTA for the first time, and that’s exactly what we’d hoped for.
We didn’t have a specific vision of what the album would sound like at the outset, but we had lots of discussions about what this resurrection of BTA would sound like. Which version, or era, of Becoming The Archetype was being summoned? It seemed that we were all drawn in the same direction for this conjuring, so we were all on the same page as we wrote, and refined, and developed these songs. And we nailed the sound we were going for. Now we hope and pray that listeners are as jazzed about it as we are!
SOURCE – What were some of the things you wanted to achieve with the release Children of the Great Extinction?
Seth Andrew Hecox (Rhythm guitar, keyboards, clean vocals) – Most of all, we wanted to reassemble the band and make what felt like the quintessential BTA album. To do that, I connected with the original drummer and original vocalist to work alongside me. I was the one original member who never left the band, and it felt good to write and record music with Jason (vocals/bass) and Duck (drums) again. I knew there was a substantial appetite from our fan base for new music and our fan base was large enough to warrant putting in the time and effort (and expense) to make a new album happen. We also felt like we could do a new album without making it sound like we were a bunch of old dudes who had not adapted or progressed in the last 10 to 15 years. And our producer, Nate Washburn, really helped us in that respect. He not only did a great job with the production and mix, he also functioned as another guitarist for us, and helped us become the best version of ourselves. Due largely to his involvement, we “became” the archetype, if you will, haha. Or at least something worth listening to.
SOURCE – Where do you come across as far as the lyrical content? Does that change album to album, or do you go for similar themes?
Seth Andrew Hecox (Rhythm guitar, keyboards, clean vocals) – For every album that Jason has been on, he has handled the lyrics entirely. I wrote some of the lyrics on the album he wasn’t on (I Am, our 5th album released back in 2012), but normally I’m happy just handling the keyboards, some of the guitars, and some of the singing vocals.
Typically, every album has a different lyrical theme and content. This one is much more conceptual and tells a big, overarching story from the first track to the last track. That story is set as sort of a sci-fi epic, but we hope that it’ll speak to the universal human condition as well as the particulars of each person’s individual situations. Themes like existential terror are prevalent throughout, and that speaks to the reality of so many people right now. Hope is another prominent theme, and we hope that resonates with people as well.
SOURCE – How did the songwriting and recording process for Children of the Great Extinction compare to your previous albums?
Seth Andrew Hecox (Rhythm guitar, keyboards, clean vocals) – You know, we’ve had a different process for each of our six albums now. Which matches the fact that we’ve had a different producer for each one and we’ve recorded in a different studio for each one and had a different lineup for each one, haha. So the process was different than any of our previous albums, but it was unique, just like each of the other ones. Children of the Great Extinction probably had the longest time spent writing from beginning to finish, because technically, I began writing riffs for this album all the way back in 2016. Six years is a long time to work on a group of songs. That was extended by a couple years, of course, because of the Covid pandemic. And the bulk of the writing really happened in a couple years, via emails to one another. I think the album really benefited from that extended time, so that we didn’t feel rushed and we could keep going back to each song and make sure that we got everything the way that we wanted it.
SOURCE – Have you filmed any videos for this new CD?
Seth Andrew Hecox (Rhythm guitar, keyboards, clean vocals) – We have! There are currently three videos online for this album; one for each of the three singles we released so far. Two are more traditional music videos and one is a really cool animated visualizer. It’s based on Dan Seagrave’s fantastic painting for our album cover. He did our first album, Terminate Damnation, as well as our fourth and fifth albums, Celestial Completion and I Am. He hits it out of the park every time, and this one is no different.
Shout out to Logan, Rachel, and the Shutterstinct crew for the music videos.
SOURCE – What do you consider three of the most important bands that shape your views and outlook on music, and what’s the best concert memory you have purely attending the show as an audience member – and what made that so special to you?
Seth Andrew Hecox (Rhythm guitar, keyboards, clean vocals) – I think I speak for all of us when I say that the three most important bands for us starting out in metal a couple decades ago – and continuing even to the current day – are Extol, Opeth, and Living Sacrifice.
As for memorable live performance: one memory that is imprinted on my mind is from some of the earliest concerts I went to when I was a teenager in high school. Before they were called Norma Jean, the band was called The Lutikriss and they were oddball in so many ways. They had kind of goth haircuts and were gangly, pale white guys, haha. The guitar player taped the microphone at the bottom of the mic stand and was doubled over the whole set and when he screamed he would scream into the mic that was almost sitting on the floor. I remember their creepy, foreboding intro to their set and I had never heard their music, so I didn’t know what to expect. It was in a little room where about 80 kids were packed in. When their intro faded out and they hit some heavy riff, the whole place exploded, and I experienced the craziest mosh pit I’d ever been in. Sweaty, hot, humid, insane frenetic energy like electricity coursing through everyone in the place.
SOURCE – How do you as musicians handle the ever-evolving landscape of today’s music industry – where social media, instant technology, streaming services, etc. play just as important of a role in building the brand of the band as the songs, records, and live performances?
Seth Andrew Hecox (Rhythm guitar, keyboards, clean vocals) – I think we’re still navigating how to respond to that, haha. And I say this as more of the business type person for the band. Jason, the vocalist, has been doing music as his side project, Death Therapy, so he’s a little more attuned to the nuances of this new dynamic.
As musicians, not a ton has changed. We still play similar gear and we play it in the same way and approach songwriting in the same way. We are a riff-first band, so we write riffs that we think sound good and can stand on their own, and if we all agree on a section or a series of riffs, then they become a song and Jason puts his screaming vocals over them and I add keyboards, then he and I and the producer work on the singing vocals together.
I haven’t played a live metal show in nine years, so I can’t say how it’s affected me in that way at all. But the one area that did affect us was in the song-development process, and it really helped us I think. Being able to email each other song ideas and then add bits and pieces to them, or edit them, or record keyboard layers or vocal ideas, and then send them back to each other online was super helpful. I don’t know if we could’ve accomplished the album without those realities. And that wasn’t a thing that we did back in the first couple albums.
SOURCE – Do you see the sort of negative impact that culture of immediacy has specifically had on the music industry? Has the artform itself been affected from your point of view?
Seth Andrew Hecox (Rhythm guitar, keyboards, clean vocals) – I probably can’t answer that, because I am completely disconnected from the culture of immediacy with metal music beyond our own band. My connection to metal at this point is literally just hearing from a friend about an album, and then checking it out, and if I like it, I buy it. So my process of interaction with that world hasn’t changed at all really.
SOURCE – Thanks for taking the time to allow me to interview you. Do you have any final words for the people at home?
Seth Andrew Hecox (Rhythm guitar, keyboards, clean vocals) – Thank you for interviewing us! We are very stoked to be back and pretty confident that our fans and plenty of other metal fans who were not previously into us are going to love this album. We appreciate everyone for sticking with us through the nine years of hiatus, and we hope this resurrection will bring a sense of fulfillment to the people who have been so wonderfully supportive for almost two decades now. Keep it heavy!
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